Ever Wonder It's So Hard To Organize?

Union activist Randy McSorely does us the service of reminding people why it's so hard to organize unions these days.

• 25 percent of employers fire at least one worker for union activity during organizing campaigns. Fire one or two, the others will most likely quiet down.
  
  
• 75 percent of employers hire consultants or union-busters to help them fight union organizing drives. Then they dare say that the union is an “outside influence.”
  
  
• 78 percent of employers force employees to attend one-on-one meetings with their own supervisors against the union.
  
  
• 92 percent of employers force employees to attend mandatory closed-door meetings against the union. None — 0 percent — are forced to attend pro-union meetings.
  
  
• 52 percent of employers threaten to call the Immigration and Naturalization Service during organizing drives that include undocumented employees.
  
  Interesting that during times of no organizing, almost no employer calls Immigration.
  
  
• 51 percent of all companies that threaten to close the plant if the union wins the election.
  
  
• 1 percent of all companies actually close their plants after a successful union election. Meaning that the other 99 percent are liars.
  
  
• 32 percent is the percent of elections in which workers vote to have a union, but still have no contract two years after the election. These companies need to learn the meaning of the words “good faith.”
  
  
• 74 percent of the public says laws protecting the freedom to join unions are important. That’s a huge majority, considering the fact that it doesn’t even take 50 percent to get elected president.
  
  
• Here’s an important number: 42 million nonunion workers say they want to join a union.

Hopefully, the democracy we're graciously bringing to Iraq will make it all the way to the shop floor. But I wouldn't put money on it.